“Walking Wetlands” Help Declining Birds, Boost Crops

The request struck Dave Hedlin, a farmer in Washington’s fertile Skagit Valley, as particularly odd: Conservationists wanted him to voluntarily flood his fields.

“Most of us have spent our entire lifetimes trying to keep water off the land,” said Hedlin, whose farmlands are nestled among inlets, bays, and estuaries in the shadow of the snowcapped Mount Baker volcano.